The Raspberry PI and Leap Motion hands-on labs at Devoxx 2013 started with a packed room, we even had to fetch additional chairs for people standing in the back. Vinicius and Yara senger explained their super useful embedded devices panel where many sensors and boards can be accessed through easy REST URLs.

After my quick overview of the Leap Motion controller, the attendees could experiment with all available devices and get acquainted with it before starting a hack. Surprisingly though, only a couple of developers were interested to stick around for the real hack-fest that lasted the rest of the day.

We set up everything upstairs in the Devoxx open-space and started hacking with the brave few that showed up. As the day advanced though, more and more people came by and were impressed to see the work in progress. On Tuesday evening all the tables were packed with hackers testing and building cool stuff. Ten of them were able to finish their project and some even presented it on video for the Oracle Technology Network YouTube channel.

I had a great time and it's wonderful to see how easily accessible physical embedded devices speak to the imagination of so many developers.

Here's my hack that lets you control a strip of multi-colored lights that are connected to Arduino over a Raspberry Pi and are remotely controlled with the Leap Motion controller over the network.